Chemistry Nobel for green fluorescent protein, GFP

Nobel prize in chemistry has been awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Woods Hole, MA, USA; Martin Chalfie, Columbia University New York, NY, USA and Roger Y. Tsien, University of California San Diego, CA, USA "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". Each person will share 1/3rd of the prize.

Official press release from Nobel foundation is here.

List of Nobel prize winners in Chemistry can be found here.

I would like to congratulate all of three Nobel winners in chemistry.

Nobel in Physics goes to Three Japanese Scientists

Nobel prize in Physics 2008 has been awarded to three Physicists namely Yoichiro Nambu (who is Japanese born American) from Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago Chicago, IL, USA, Makoto Kobayashi from High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Tsukuba, Japan and Toshihide Maskawa from Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan.

Nambu will receive half of the prize "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics" where as Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa will receive 1/4th each "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature".

I would like to congratulate these great scientists for the prize.
For the official announcement click here.
And for the list of Nobel prize in Physics since 1901 click here.

Nobel prize in Chemistry will be announced tomorrow October 8th at 11.45 CET.

2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine

The most prestigious Nobel prize in medicine for 2008 has been awarded to three great persons. They are Harald zur Hausen,German Cancer Research Centre Heidelberg, Germany;Françoise Barré-Sinoussi,Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, Virology Department, Institut Pasteur Paris, France; and Luc Montagnier, World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention Paris, France. Harald will share 1/2 of the prize "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" and later two will share 1/4 of the prize of each "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus."

For official press release please visit http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2008/press.html

Some time with Nobel Laureate "Roderick MacKinnon"

I have no dream to become a Nobel laureate but I wanted to see and talk to such great persons. In 2004, first time, I listened a Nobel laureate giving his remarkable speech in BICC, Kathmandu during 4th National conference on Science and Technology. Today was the second time to see and listen to a Nobel Laureate from very close. It is always a matter of curiosity to me about them. How they speak, response to people, their life style. Are they normal person like us? What is inside their brain that makes such achievements?

Professor Dr. Roderick MacKinnon gave a talk on the topic "The principles of potassium ion channel" in ALS 4001, OSU followed by a informal discussion with students during refreshment.

His talk was about how potassium passes the membranes through potassium channels. According to him these channels are very selective to potassium ions. For example when about one thousand to ten thousand potassium cross the membrane only one sodium ion is able to cross through the channel although the size of sodium is much more smaller than potassium.

He is a professor at The Rockefeller University. Before he moved to this school in 1996, he was a faculty at Harvard Medical School. About his academic degrees: he did his undergraduate study in Biochemistry from Brandeis University, MD in medicine from Tufts University. He won Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003.

Great lesson from him is that if you don't like, not interested in and not enjoying whatever you are doing, don't do it. This is his suggestion to undergraduate students who are going to graduate school soon. He himself is an example of this. He did his undergraduate in biochemistry. His undergraduate research adviser suggested him to go to graduate school but he decided to go to medical school. He didn't enjoyed his time during that 7 years and finally he came back to the lab working with same professor. He was trying to explain why he didn't like medical school and this career in the informal discussion with undergraduate students from department of biochemistry and biophysics at OSU. It was lots of memorizing stuffs and he was not good at memorizing. He couldn't enjoy the period. It was his important and hard decision to leave medical career and going back to graduate school.

He lives with his wife. They don't have child. He is proud of the work he has done and contribution to the science and The Nobel Prize. Answering to a question from a student about his wife's support in his success he said its great support and encouragement.

About the secrete of his success he mentioned interest and hard work are main driving forces. He always see the things in different ways than other people see. He doesn't go by the great things. He likes to work on the small things.

You can read more about him and his findings in following links.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2003/mackinnon-autobio.html

http://www.rockefeller.edu/labheads/mackinnon/mackinn-lab.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_MacKinnon

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=interview-with-roderick-m

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eODp6lCI3PA